Heretic Treasure Chest

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The HTC was a community project aiming to make a 3 episode Heretic Megawad that would run on limit removing ports that support Heretic (i.e. Doomsday, ZDoom etc). Below details who did what in alphabetical order:

Description : The HTC was a community project aiming to make a 3 episode Heretic Megawad that would run on limit removing ports that support Heretic (i.e. Doomsday, ZDoom etc). Below details who did what in alphabetical order:

Game : Heretic
Map # : E1M1-E3M9
Single Player : Designed for
Cooperative 2-4 Player : Starts present but untested
Deathmatch 2-4 Player : Starts present but untested
Other game styles : No
Difficulty Settings : Yes

* Construction *

Base : New from scratch
Build Time : Unknown
Editor(s) used : Various
May Not Run With... : Vanilla Heretic and non-limit removing Heretic ports.

===Known issues with Zdoom based ports===
There are a couple of issues with E3M8 in ZDoom (as of writing) and its derivatives, due to differences in the behaviour of these ports to the original Heretic.

1. The exit teleporter will lower prematurely.
2. The stairs will not build after D'sparil's death.

This means players running the HTC on ZDoom can use the former issue to cheat and skip battling D'sparil. There is a secret alternate way that allows a player to get up said stairs which means the latter issue won't cause the player to get stuck if using ZDoom.

* Copyright / Permissions *

Authors MAY NOT use the contents of this file as a base for
modification or reuse. Permissions have been obtained from original
authors for any of their resources modified or included in this file.

You MAY distribute this file, provided you include this text file, with
no modifications. You may distribute this file in any electronic
format (BBS, Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file
intact. We, the HTC Team, have received permission from the original authors of any
modified or included content in this file to allow further distribution.

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well this is a pretty good set. lots of variety as you would expect for a Community Chest-inspired Heretic wad and quite some fun was had in pretty much all of the maps. E2M7 stands out the most, with all the projectiles in the open areas plus the massive gargoyle attack at the end. yeah, there's bugs, like with E3M8 and the D'Sparil battle, but I was completely unable to get a secret in E3M3 for some reason.

This is the first Heretic pwad I've ever played and I enjoyed it a lot. It brings some classic scenarios and a lot of stuff you don't get in the iwad. Visually, well it's multicolored, it's Heretic after all, some nice designing and recolored textures, not much to say. I liked the usage of different themes in a same map, like in E1M9. The third episode has the best looking maps in my opinion.

Ok, there are only 3 episodes but plenty of maps of varied length and gameplay. I'd say, in terms of gameplay, it's a mixed bag actually, there's many maps that follow the style of the iwads, meaning packs of the same type of monster in corridors, or a very little traps, specially teleport traps. The ones present are quite good, involving moving a lot to avoid high damage. Infighting is possible in almost every map, and some of the later ones have the best scenarios. There're also maps where enemies will start to infight before you even do something, which is not so fun. You'll also get completely long straightforward maps without a chance to return to previous parts, a pet peeve of mine but whatever... A few of my favourite encounters include a massive infestation of nitrogargoyles in a cave, a tricky trap with lots of disciples and iron liches, and a wave of disciples against a malotaur in a ring (I use a decorate to make any monster able to target the malotaur). And more and more.

Secret wise, given that, even the original game is really hard to spot the secrets, I won't complain too much here, but I'll add that in some maps I had no idea how to get their secrets, like not a clue. Wall hunting is needed in several cases. The rewards are good though. Music wise, apart from iwad tracks, there also some nice new midis and Doom tracks too, particularly in E2M5, if it's not remixed though.

I found several bugs that I won't specifically mention because I doubt an update would ever be released... HOMs, monsters that fail to pop up, items that cannot be grabbed, doors that open from one side but not the other side, and particularly in E3M8, you can exit the map without releasing D'Sparil, and if you decide to fight him and company, you can't get out of the arena as nothing is triggered after his death, at least it didn't happen to me, and ended up using kitty to exit.

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Some gems in here, if you're a fan of Heretic it's worth downloading this wad to play these maps; E1M3 E1M4 E1M5 E1M8 E3M1. I still play these every now and then.
But sadly this is dragged down by some terrible maps and texture recolors; E1M1 is probably the worst Heretic map I've ever played, a lot of the maps are okay but aren't really for me because they use too much custom resources, there's enough good maps to make a 5 episode, but because of the maps in between it gets 3

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5 stars for episode 3 alone; episode 2 is quite good too, esp. the later maps. E1 is mostly average stuff but still acceptable, with E1M4 and E1M8 being best. Best Heretic release this year besides Curse.

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yep (5/5). now what we need is a HeXen Megawad! the one i'm looking forward is CRUEL by Ettin Grinder and curse of lost Gods by Kristus.
also looking forward for Heretic - Sword of Chaos by Caleb23. these are HIGH QUALITY MEGAWADS! long live Doom, Heretic, Hexen!

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Improving quality throughout, most of E1 is quite average but E2 has a fair number of nice maps in it, especially the later levels, and E3 was all out excellent IMO. 5/5 for the later maps and also for being one of only TWO Heretic megawads I know (other is hocx). Three of these maps (E1M4-->kaiser_21.zip; E2M2-->pc_ls.zip; and E1M7-->first map in Necrosis for Hexen) were already released but I didn't mind replaying them, they were good. The later maps make this a must-have for Heretic fans!

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This wad is a good one. It has plenty of entertainment and replay value. My only wish was that all the levels were of the same quality. Some are just not that .... Heretic-y. Others, on the other hand, are gorgeous. So, maybe a few levels less would have made a flawless wad.
Overall though, a very good job. Thank you for this game. (for it is still that much better than Kristus's wads :P!)

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I think it's worth 3 stars. The best map is E1M5 but it's been released before as kaiser_21.wad. Otherwise some maps are decent and some aren't so decent. Nonetheless there's some potential for the finished product.

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Some of the levels are great. Some are really bad. And others are either meh - or has something about it that is equally bad as it is good. Too many of the levels, especially in the second hub/episode are clearly originally made for Doom (as it has Doom-like level progression and little height-variation) and then just visually converted to Heretic. I don't like all the new colours either. These bad maps let down the maps clearly more dedicated to capturing the true feel of Heretic.

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Dunno why many people complain about episode 1, I think it's great too, especially M4. The fact that there is hardly any health/ammo supportion in some levels bugs me more. Still, I respect the guys who finally made a full 3-episode replacement for Heretic, we'd need more. 4.5/5

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A mixed bag. It has some quality maps (E1M5, E1M8) and has a bunch of crappier maps (E1M1, E1M6). Already posted my nitpicks in the thread, so not much more to say about this. Looking forward to the full version. 4/5 - Moti

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E1M5 is the best map by a mile. Then there are a few other that are nice to varying degrees. E1M8 for instance is a nice city map, but with not much Heretic to the game play, and not really a boss map. There are too many meh maps though, and E1M3 and E1M4 is even reused from other projects. 3/5 (that it's an Heretic project, and because of E1M5 bumps up the score) -Kristus

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File Reviews

I guess this was meant to be a serious wad, just using a trick to make the C-Demon hard to see. I don't think it was a deliberate troll of the style that caught on later, eg Sand Chain and the Terry wads. IMHO it nowhere near holds the record for "worst wad ever" (even if it did once) so it is now "over-rated" in that respect. I was a bit disappointed, I was expecting worse LoL.

Doomers these days have varying levels of patience. I know I have some of the worst when it comes to quickly finishing areas and moving on, which is why I prefer shorter levels most of the time. this particular map, a Maximum Doom map by the way, is one that completely tested my patience.
this is 8 levels long, from E1M1 to E1M8, and is sort of a proto-slaughtermap episode replacement. every map here has at least 200 monsters, and the layouts of each say that they are compact in size. so the action would be pretty good and fun right?
WRONG
while it's fun to kill all these enemies, this is honestly horribly balanced. on the first level, you only really get a shotgun and a chaingun, and it took me a while to get just one armor too. is that the worst part? I can actually enjoy the challenge of such a gameplay scenario so no. what's problematic about each and every level in this wad is that when you're not killing enemies, you're just sort of fucking around. in other words, you're switch hunting. but this is the worst kind due to lifts that have zero indications that they are lifts, as well as switches that have zero indication of what they did. not to mention some walls are triggers, when they really don't have any indication that they really do anything. oh yes, and mandatory secrets and backtracking. I would like the combat more if it gave more weapons too, not one plasma gun or BFG in sight, and all that backtracking just...fucking...headdesk. there's no reliable way to even speedrun this, to the point where I wonder if the author ever realized that other's would tire the fuck out over it. "these are the easy ones" this has all the hallmarks of a bad Maximum Doom map.
it's amazing how varied my Maximum Doom experience is so far. there are some really fun maps, mediocre but quick maps, and some long and nasty ones. I'm honestly trying to avoid reviewing any maps from there but i'll make an exception for this particular one since it's just unbelievably bad.

More an exercise in 3-d artwork than a game. Just someone's bedroom with a HK in a tiny lobby outside the door, and a Caco in a tiny yard outside the window. A BFG and Invisibilty Sphere are also in the yard but you can't get out there. I think the name is a clue - maybe this was the start of a bigger level, then abandoned. He ought to have allowed it as a base for development.